Unless you live under a rock, or are biding your time in an Ikea-furnished Doomsday bunker far below the earth’s crust in preparation for the Mayan apocalypse, chances are you know that zombies have already taken over American pop culture. That’s not to say we are turning into zombies, although one more clip of someone going Gangnam Style might be the stake in the brain that finishes us off for good, but our infatuation with the undead has reached epic proportions. This is exemplified by AMCs wildly popular series The Walking Dead. So what, you might ask, do zombies have to do with writing, web content, or deciding to hire blog writers for your website? As the Mad Hatter famously inquired in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
Because They Both Have Inky Quills
That’s the only cohesive answer to Carroll’s riddle. Vague at best, indeed. But it brings us back to writing. And zombies. For what post apocalyptic landscape isn’t being picked apart by a ravenous murder of crows? All of this points to one burning question: When you wake up in the morning, eyes glazed with lack of sleep, brain a befuddled haze of incoherent thoughts and set pieces, how do you shake off your zombie state, reanimate and start an 8+ hour day of writing? Do you:
A) Stand in front of the mirror and begin a Robert De Niro, Taxi Driver monologue, only to find yourself devolving into the sort of cheerleading pep talk that Rick Grimes, sheriff and de facto hero of The Walking Dead, is fond of. “You can do this. We can do this. We’ve come this far, haven’t we? Forget about those rejections. Don’t give up now.”
B) Grab the nearest katana, which is fan favorite Michonne’s weapon of choice, but in your case might be a broom or an umbrella, and practice some Kung-Fu, swashbuckling moves in the front yard, much to the horror of the neighbors eyeballing you through their blinds. Who needs Yoga, Zumba, or 15 minutes of deep breathing when you have a katana?
C) Shuffle and shamble in your pajamas all day, downing buckets of coffee, daytime TV on surround sound, only to wake from the zombie state and hit the computer once everyone else has retired for the night.
D) Wonder if your head, metaphysically, at least, has been severed and is really bobbing somewhere in The Governor’s aquarium of floating heads. What, then, do you do about that? And why does The Governor have all those floating heads anyway?
E) Take the day off and go to the mall, the beach, an amusement park.
F) Reread Alice in Wonderland.
G) Go completely Merle Dixon, ditch your computer and build a hand/weapon…but instead of a blade where your hand used to be, you have a giant pen, perhaps an inky quill instead of a ball-point.
H) None of the above.
Damon H is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments.
